Pages

September 9, 2012

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

While I'm workin'
the espadrilles and throwin' down what are sure to look like some
heavy duty gang signs, one thing's for sure: no matter how many ways I tie my scarf, I'll never be European. This fact evidenced by the
purchase and consumption of one single chocolate bar.
After nearly three
weeks of hospital food, I broke down yesterday and high tailed it to
the supermercado nearest the hospital under the guise of post
c-section rehabilitation. What I was really doing though was
hunting for deodorant and chocolate, two such things one cannot live
without postpartum. Ten minutes and two euros later I had my fix,
one of those really big chocolate bars, not at all like the American
jumbo sized candy bar but more like the 'could be a tennis racket'
size.

I will admit to
being more Snickers than I am Nestle or Hershey but being that there
are no Snickers, Whatchamacallits or even Milky Ways on this side of
the Atlantic, the Nestle brick would have to suffice. It all started
with my roommate, a Euro-waif, who not even a week after giving birth
is back to wearing her size zero jeans. I'm not kidding. Size ZERO.
Anyway, there she was her scarf draped casually over one shoulder
and her chocolate bar resting in her lap, the tin foil folded neatly
back like you would a fine linen bed sheet. Carefully, and what
appeared to be in slow motion,she snapped off two little
pieces along the perforated line in the chocolate bar. Until this
moment of watching her fingers break those chocolate pieces away from
the mother-load, I had naively assumed that executives in the
chocolate industry had designed those perforations specifically to
aid in my consumption. They were, in my small world, tracks for my
teeth to rest in, leverage for the task at hand. Any notion of
opening a chocolate bar but not eating it whole was unfathomable,
dare I say sacrilege. Yet there she was, in her chic Euro scarf and
size zeros wrapping the remaining 34
million squares back up for Armageddon. That's just about when I
decided that a year's worth of Spanish living owed me the same luxury
and so I set off for the supermercado.As fast as my
swollen little ankles could carry me, I waddled on down the road,
entered the store and made a beeline for the novelties aisle. I'll
admit, the deodorant I threw in the basket was just a decoy, and a
pretty lame one at that. The cashier, fully capable of calling my
bluff, thankfully did not. I'd convinced myself that I too can
enjoy chocolate in moderation, one, maybe two squares at a time thus
making it last until well into the following week. You know where
this is going, don't you. [sigh]

So what happened
once back 'home' at the hospital? Yeah, you know what the fuck
happened. I snap off my two pieces, wrap the remaining bar neatly
back up and put it to bed in the mini fridge for safe keeping.
Fingers trembling ever so slightly in anticipation of what's to come,
I sit down and pop the first perfect little chunk into my mouth.
Heaven. The second piece chases the first, a sweet fountain of milk
chocolate all the way down the back of my throat, almost
pornographic. This, the European Way, should satisfy me but
of course it doesn't. Instead it's like teasing a lion with a
chicken wing from KFC. Not ten minutes later and I'm up for another
two pieces, wrap it back up, mentally chastise myself for the
indulgence and put it back in the mini fridge. Ten more minutes go
by, same thing. Two more squares gone. The fourth trip I just say
fuck it and eat the whole damned thing.
Sadly, the
punishment for my crime is not the absence of the Nestle bar but
rather the roommate's Cadbury sitting untouched since the day before
between the strawberry and vanilla yogurts on the top shelf of the
fridge, his wrapper snug as he hisses disapproval in his haughty
French accent because European disapproval always comes with a
French accent, “Go on now, Fat American. No more chocolate for
you!”
Yes, moderation
it appears is proof positive that I'll never be European.No matter how many
different ways I tie my scarf.